Why Low-Calorie Lasagna Might Be the Perfect Meal Prep

0:00 This tray makes six huge servings of lasagna at about 620 calories and 60 grams of protein each. Across the tray we're packing in half a kilo of lean beef and over a kilo of vegetables, but it still tastes like proper lasagna. Rich ragu, creamy layers and plenty of melted cheese. What makes it especially good for meal prep is that these can sit in the freezer for months, and when I reheated yesterday's batch in the microwave, there was barely any sacrifice in texture. So whenever I'm craving something rich, cheesy and actually filling, I've already got a complete meal ready to go. But achieving all of that while keeping the calories down creates a few problems. Pack the ragu with vegetables and it can turn into a watery vegetable soup.

0:46 Cut the cheese too far and you lose the richness and stretch that make lasagna worth eating. So first, how do we hide over a kilo of vegetables in the ragu without sacrificing taste or texture? For this dish we're using mushrooms, zucchini, carrot and onions. So chop them really fine. Once they cook down, they blend into the ragu instead of eating like separate vegetables. I like using this hand-cranked chopper because I can prep the whole lot in under 10 minutes, but a knife works too. We're using extra lean beef so before the vegetables go in, brown the beef properly. Don't stop as soon as they turn grey. Give it a little longer until you see some browning. It gives us much deeper savoury flavour, then take them out.

1:31 Technically you will get more browning if you cook this many vegetables in batches, but I'm going for max convenience and for this recipe, I don't think the extra work is worth it. So it all goes in at once. At first they will steam and release a large amount of water. Keep cooking until the pooled water disappears and they start sizzling. Once they start sizzling, clear a space in the middle, fry the tomato paste for about a minute, add the garlic briefly, then go in with this mix of seasoning, passata, and the brown beef. Now don't reduce this ragu too far because dry pasta has to hydrate from the sauce as it bakes. If the ragu has gone too thick, just add a little bit of water back. Stop when there's no obvious water pooling, but it's still visibly saucy. This is about the consistency we want.

2:19 And now the next problem is where most low-calorie lasagnas really fall short. Cheese is one of the biggest calorie costs in the dish, but it's also what makes lasagna worth eating. So I don't want to use as little cheese as possible. I want every calorie we spend on dairy to actually do something. For this lasagna, I need the dairy to do three jobs. Give us creaminess, concentrated cheesy flavour, and the stretch and browning on top. For the creaminess, I'm using low-fat cottage cheese. Cottage cheese is full of those soft little curds. They're completely fine to leave in if you don't mind the texture, but I prefer a smoother layer, so I blend everything together. You can just whisk it together instead and leave the curds in. Either way, it gives us a thick, creamy base with a lot of protein for relatively few calories.

3:05 Then I'm adding a little parmesan. Parmesan is calorie dense, but it's also intensely savory, so we don't need very much. A small amount gives us a lot of cheesy flavour. And finally mozzarella. This is the one I'm least willing to cut because it's doing something the other two can't. It's giving us the stretch and that browned cheesy top. So I'm using a light mozzarella which has great macros, keeping some between the layers and adding plenty of it for the top where we actually notice it. So instead of getting one low-calorie substitute to do everything, each ingredient gets one job. Now let's actually put the whole thing together. I'm going to do three layers of ragu and cream with two layers of pasta in between. I'm using dry, no-boil lasagna sheets for convenience, and the most important thing

3:51 is they need enough moisture around them to cook properly. Make sure every sheet is completely covered with sauce. Then we'll put on the second layer. We'll add just one third of the mozzarella in this one. Then for the final layer. And plenty of mozzarella on top. Cover it tightly with foil and bake at 200 degrees Celsius for around 40 minutes. After that, remove the foil and give the cheese another 10 to 20 minutes, just until the top is golden and blistered. After resting for about 20 minutes, cut it into six pieces, and this is one serving.

4:37 About 620 calories, 60 grams of protein, and honestly, this is a lot of lasagna. You still get thick layers of ragu, soft pasta, plenty of creamy filling, and that brown cheesy top. But fresh is only half the test. If this is actually going to be great meal prep, it needs to survive freezing and reheating, without turning watery or losing all that creaminess. Portion the rest into containers. You can keep them in the fridge if you're eating them soon, but I prefer freezing them so there's no pressure to finish six servings in the same week. These can last in the freezer for a few months, then whenever I want one, I just microwave it straight from frozen. So let's see how frozen compares to fresh. Alright, I'll try the fresh one first.

5:23 (music) Man, it's really rich and creamy, although it's got less bounce and chew compared to normal lasagna. The pasta is really soft, and you can barely taste the vegetables. And now for the frozen and microwaved one. Let's give this a try. (music) Honestly, the frozen one is really close. The pasta is a little bit softer because I think the microwave steamed it a bit. There's no watery separation, and I think

6:10 the layering helps a lot when you reheat it. I'd happily eat either of these every day. And that's why I think this makes the perfect meal prep. (music)